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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8028112" data-attributes="member: 29398">You might not have said it but others have, many times and not just here.Much of the Satanic panic revolved around portrayal of immoral acts (e.g. demon summoning) in the D&D books made D&D itself immoral.Also, even though your real-world self might think or say something about a world in which a Paladin kicks kids in the teeth just for fun, that doesn't and shouldn't stop an author from designing and presenting a setting where street children are considered chattel and have the same standing as stray dogs, and where the Paladin is in fact a hero to the people.This gets messy.What this means is that two authors could write the exact same story word for word, and the only thing that would determine which one was moral and which wasn't is the writers' intent, which may never be known.The problem is more of failing to divorce, partly or fully, real-world considerations and setting considerations.  In the setting an author is presenting, perhaps something we real people would consider evil is an accepted part of life, and those who do it (or do it best) are hailed as heroes and the goal of the commoners is to one day be just like those heroes.It also comes down to how one reads one's fiction (or approaches one's RPGs), and how seriously one takes any of it.  I rarely if ever read anything as if it was a morality play; instead I read it to immerse myself in the author's setting for the time I spend reading the book, ignoring real-world considerations due to being fully aware that real-world considerations may or may not have any overlap with the considerations of the book's setting.  Same goes for playing RPGs.Within the fiction, yes; as the relative goodness or badness is set by the conceits already presented in said fiction.A reader can of course decide - and debate or discuss with others - whether that setting's conceits would be good or bad in reality, if said reader wants to bother.You can bring real-world ethics in if you want, but why?  Enjoy the fiction for what it is - fiction - and leave real-world ethics for the real world.This is how I generally approach playing and-or DMing RPGs - that the fiction I'm presenting or playing within has little if any relation to reality, and so I can dial stuff up to eleven and do things I'd never be able (or allowed!) to do in reality.  The only place reality intervenes is if something would be offensive to someone else at the table.On reflection, maybe, and perhaps that was the author's intent.  Perhaps it wasn't; and unless the author has otherwise stated his-her intent in writing that work we've no way of knowing which it is.</blockquote>

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